Too much nostalgia, not enough skepticism

Commentary: Yankee Stadium's end brings out worst in sportswriters

By

JonFriedman

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- I love the New York Yankees, my favorite baseball team since I was a little kid, more than oxygen and clean water. But I'm distressed to see the sports media buying into the franchise's brilliantly choreographed campaign to focus on nostalgia, not business, as the current model of Yankee Stadium closes its doors forever.

The original Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 and was renovated in the mid-1970s. The improved version, which the team has called its home since the 1976 season, will be replaced by a state-of-the-art entertainment extravaganza at the start of the 2009 baseball season. It will continue to be called Yankee Stadium.

Major League Baseball, despite the taint of a highly publicized steroids scandal, is enjoying boom times as attendance at the ball parks is robust. Plus, MLB is aggressively exporting America's National Pastime to Asia, Europe and Latin America.

The Yankees have won 26 titles, more than any other baseball team, and they figure prominently in the marketing of the sport abroad.

Orgy of sentimentality

Throughout the buildup to the close of this stadium, the Yankees have used the YES network, which the team oversees, and the accommodating New York media to lead an orgy of sentimentality.

It's understandable when people feel emotional about Yankee Stadium. It's special because it's The House That (Babe) Ruth Built, back in 1923. The place symbolizes so vividly the most successful and storied sports franchise in the United States, if not the world.

Still, I wonder: Can't journalists, who pride themselves on being tough-minded and skeptical, also balance the nostalgia with hard-headed reporting on the Yankees' agenda and greed?

Why aren't more scribes and broadcasters vocal about pointing out why the Yankees' owners are closing the Stadium? No, it's not necessarily happening because the "big ballpark in the Bronx" (as Reggie Jackson likes to call it), has outlived its usefulness. I've attended enough games there this season to enjoy its splendor and conclude that there is no structural need to tear it down right now, either.

To be blunt, the team owners are shutting this Yankee Stadium because they can make a lot more money by opening a state-of-the-art baseball stadium/cum amusement park for fans who probably care more about being entertained than watching nine innings of baseball. The team's executives can charge much higher ticket prices.

The Yankees would love to see Fortune 500 corporations become even more conspicuous in the new stadium. Millionaire lawyers, doctors and small-business owners are welcome as well. The people in the category of the infamous "bleacher creatures," who can only afford to sit in the cheap(est) seats? Not so much.

Not so much

Speaking of a not-so-much theme, let's examine the sorry state of the Yankees. The team is nearing the end of a desultory season. The Yankees have qualified for the post-season playoffs every season since 1995 but will miss the fun this time because of a string of damaging injuries to top players, a failure by the management to add all-star pitchers and sub-par play by the team's offensive stars (especially Derek Jeter in the first half of the season and Alex Rodriguez in the second).

Meanwhile, the upstart Tampa Bay Rays are surging toward the playoffs for the first time and the Boston Red Sox (a model of excellence that arouses memories of the Yankees in the late 1990s) are qualifying for the playoffs again. Toronto is also on the rise. It's possible that the Yankees may miss the playoffs again next season and revive bleak memories of 1965 and 1982, seasons that ushered in a decade-plus of failure.

You could make a case that the media are unwittingly aiding and abetting the Yankees. With reporters showering so much attention on the end of this Yankee Stadium -- with the hype machine ready to be cranked up over the winter for the new one across the street -- the fans won't spend s much time lamenting the Yankees' disappointing 2008 season.

What matters now is the end of this Yankee Stadium, for better or worse.

Just to show that I'm not a total curmudgeon, I'd like to present my top-10 list of the most famous games that took place in Yankee Stadium since it was renovated in 1976.

Top Ten memories of the 'new' (1976-2008) Yankee Stadium

10) 1983: The Pine-Tar Fiasco -- When umpires ruled that Kansas City star George Brett had put an excessive amount of pine tar on his bat and took his home run off the scoreboard, Brett flew out of the dugout and practically went berserk. He screamed at the umpires and waved his arms frantically. If he had acted this way in Central Park, New York's Finest would have locked him up for a long time.

9) 1996: Sorry, Tony -- Orioles' right-fielder Tony Tarasco camped under Jeter's fly ball in game one of the 1996 American League playoffs and poised to catch it -- until a kid in the crowd named Jeffrey Maier steered the ball over the wall. The umpires ruled (incorrectly, as it turned out) that there was no interference on the play and Tarasco, for his part, justifiably did a pretty fair imitation of Brett.

8) 1996: World Champs, Again -- Joe Girardi's triple keyed the team's championship-clinching game against the defending champs, the Atlanta Braves. Remember how Yankee third-baseman Wade Boggs rode triumphantly around the Stadium afterward on the back of a police horse?

7) 1976: Back to the World Series -- In game 5 of the American League playoffs, Chris Chambliss hit a game-winning homer to catapult the team to its first Fall Classic in 12 years (I was there!).

4) 2001: Back from the Dead -- Tino Martinez's game-tying, ninth-inning home run came with the team down to its final out. He enabled the Yankees to avoid a crushing loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in game four of the World Series. The Yankees subsequently won in extra innings when Derek "Mr. November" Jeter smacked the first World Series home run ever hit in the month of November.

3) 2001: Back from the Dead (Redux) -- Incredibly, on the following night, Scott Brosius did the same thing. He hit another two-run, game-tying home run in the ninth inning (off the same relief pitcher, Byung-Hyun Kim, no less!) and momentarily saved the Yankees. The Yanks had been on the verge of losing gave five to Arizona in the World Series, until Brosius homered. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, it was a lovely diversion for the shell-shocked city.

2) 2003: Aaron Boone, Unlikely Hero -- The unheralded Boone, of all people, hit the 11th-inning, game-winning home run against Boston Red Sox knuckleball specialist Tim Wakefield to land the Yankees in the World Series. As of right now, Boone's blast is being remembered as the Yankees' last shining moment.

1) 1977: Reg-gie, Reg-gie, Reg-gie -- Reggie Jackson leads the Yankees to their first title in 15 years with one of baseball's most remarkable accomplishments. In three at-bats in game six of the World Series, Jackson hit three home runs. Making the feat even more memorable, he hit the homers off three different Los Angeles Dodger pitchers -- and on three consecutive at-bats. The accomplishment was so outstanding that Dodger first baseman Steve Garvey later said he applauded into his glove, along with the delirious Yankee fans.

Honorable mentions: There were three distinctive no-hitters hurled by Yankee pitchers -- Dave Righetti's on July 4, 1983, the birthday of team owner George Steinbrenner, against the hated Red Sox; Dwight Gooden's stirring comeback victory in 1996; and Jim Abbott's in 1993. Abbott's victory was an amazing achievement for a man who was born without a right hand.

One more memory: Bobby Murcer electrified the stadium in August 1979 when he had the game-winning hit only hours after Murcer delivered a eulogy in honor of Yankee team captain, Thurman Munson. Munson had died four days earlier when his private plane crashed.

Yankee Stadium closed last night with another victory by the New York Yankees. As I watched the speeches and saw the teary-eyed spectators in the crowd, I kept thinking: If the place was so special, why do they have to tear it down?

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